The Collared Petrel on the Welsh Coast. 411 



XXXV. — Note on the Collared Petrel (CEstrelata torquata) 

 recently reported to have been killed on the Welsh Coast. By 

 OsBERT Salvin, M.A., F.E.S., &c. 



(Plate IX.) 



In the 'Zoologist^ for December last (1890, p. 454), 

 Mr. Harting gave a short account of a Petrel a specimen of 

 which had been submitted to him for identification by Mr. J. 

 W. Willis Bund. The same specimen has since been sent 

 to me by our Editor, with a request that I would write a few 

 notes on it and on the species to which it belongs, to accom- 

 pany the figure of it that it has been thought desirable to 

 place before the readers of ' The Ibis.^ 



Regarding the capture of the specimen, Mr. Willis Bund 

 sends the following account : — 



" The Petrel was killed between Borth and Aberystwith 

 either at the very end of November or the beginning of 

 December 1889. It was first seen flying slowly, and when 

 it sat on the water was fired at and missed ; it did not fly 

 far, and was shot at again and killed. It was first shown to 

 the vicar of the parish of Llanfihangel Geneu-'r Glyn (the Rev. 

 J. M. Griffiths), who advised the man who shot it to take it to 

 •the Aberystwith bird-stufi*er Hutchins, as he did not know 

 what it was. Hutchins bought it from the man, and showed 

 it to me in, I think, February 1890, as a Sooty Shearwater. 

 I said that it was not that bird, but that I could not say 

 what it was. I did not buy it at the time, but at last, when 

 at Aberystwith subsequently, I purchased it.^'' 



The bird in question belongs, no doubt, to the species de- 

 scribed in 1860 as Procellaria torquata by John Macgillivray, 

 the well-known traveller and collector in many of the islands 

 of the South Pacific Ocean. 



That an individual of this species should have strayed so 

 far from its usual home is a remarkable circumstance, for 

 hitherto the home of CEstrelata torquata has been supposed 

 to be limited to a rather restricted area in the South Pacific 

 Ocean, extending from the New Hebrides to the Fiji Islands. 



But the range of many Petrels is hardly less surprising. 



